Interactive Producers are often tasked with domain name registration and management on interactive campaigns. To this end, I offer a Domain Checklist to help producers and brand domainers obtain domain names from the registrar provider. Let’s look at the pros and cons of GoDaddy.

Reasons to Use GoDaddy

Search Domains
Their whois search is good at recommending similar domains. This is helpful during domain selection in the campaign’s creative strategy phase.

Cheap Registration
GoDaddy has always offered the most competitive registration rates for commercial domains. Be sure to get a significant discount using the GoDaddy promo codes from the Live Codes blog. This can be a significant savings the client will appreciate, especially when registering hundreds of domains purely in defense of domainjacking.

Smooth Domain Administration
GoDaddy offers one of the easiest control panels in the industry for domain renewals, DNS changes, domain transfers and bulk administration. Domainers can also lock accounts and plan auto-renewals for up to 10 years.

Wide TLD Variety
GoDaddy allows registration with a large number of top level domains, including some TLDs reserved for country codes and sponsored entities. Use the convenience of a single source.

Flexible Terms On Hosting
The GoDaddy hosting model is engineered for a high volume of low traffic sites. I once produced a campaign that generated so much traffic on GoDaddy servers, they had to temporarily take our site offline to move it to a different production environment. We got a surprise series of bills for the burstable load, our hosting bill jumped from $200 to nearly $20,000!

Despite our success in marketing, I negotiated a significant price reduction. GoDaddy graciously agreed to accept a fraction of the cost, and they allowed us to move the campaign to a host provider better equipped to scale rapidly during traffic crunches.

You Can Reach a Human Being
Unlike many smaller registrars, you can talk to a real people at GoDaddy. Call (480) 505-8877. This can be crucial when dealing with odd situations like sponsored TLDs, renewals, transfers, emergency DNS administration or chasing down account access due to poor management during campaign staff turnover.

Proactive Customer ServiceUpdate I got this brief voicemail from GoDaddy just checking in to make sure everything is a-ok. Nice touch.

Reasons to Avoid GoDaddy

Excessive Upselling During Registration
I don’t even ask my most savvy brand managers to suffer the endless stream of GoDaddy upselling during the registration. My campaigns rarely need the privacy, promotional or hosting add-ons. It can be tricky navigating the registration process, especially by domain owners that aren’t sure about what services are needed.

However, his boorish persona steeped in adolescence and keenly expressed in the company’s sexually charged Superbowl ads is kinda creepy (he really should consider leaving Guyland). Judging by his fan comments, he has managed to build a cult following a la other web celebs. But is his regression really such a feat in the shadow of Hugh Hefner? I’m just sayin’. Have some fun, but think a little more Richard Branson or Larry Ellison and less Tila Tequila.

Tyler, I’ve had my druthers as well, but found them to be very helpful on the phone. The hosting control panel is actually more intuitive than comparable services at Yahoo. Both are cheap & pack a bunch of sited on single servers, so you get what you pay for.

Had to chuckle at the “Enough with Old Man Perv Thing” comment. More than once I’ve used another registrar for a professional contact/client because of Bob Parson’s persona. I am a HUGE advocate of keeping your DNS separate from your hosting accounts – and GoDaddy has been lightening-fast for DNS changes. However, my wife (a professional photographer but that gets me no slack) still gives me dirty looks whenever she catches Danica posing via godaddy.com on my computer at home. So I HAVE sent female friends and clients elsewhere even if the deal was a bit better at GoDaddy.

Of course, the phrase “you can’t argue with success” comes to mind. Guess it all comes down to how you define success. I would be proud if one of my daughters followed in Danica Patrick’s footsteps. I just want it to be for what they kick vs what they flash – GoDaddy should grow up as well.

If you haven’t already check out all the promo codes before buying webhosting! There is some people that are not sure how to go about owning the site that they have created. If you are in that dilemma then you will want to think about using Hostingexcel to get coupons to save up to a big percent off hosting if you use this company and their web hosting. Again, this is a great way to save money while you are getting your site up and running.

About Me

I am an executive-level interactive producer specializing in social media, online community management and buzz marketing for national accounts. I provide agency support & client service across multiple industries. I love integrated campaign strategy, working with creative teams, kicking-off projects and driving them through launch.